Microsoft hijacks Nigerian Mandriva deal

[vexorian]

http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/

This is terrible, this is a shame for the IT world, this is just apalling and awful . Microsoft possibly bribed as many Nigerian politicians as possible to do this.

Look, The Nigerian government has paid for Mandriva PCs already, but they will still pay for windows PCs and use them instead. This is utter ridiculous, if you have Nigerian friends or something like that denounce this, it is a atterible act of corruption from the Nigerian government. Elicitations happen for a reason, if you end up ignoring them and paying another company later, you are screwing things up...

And MS, I wish we could get rid of this predator, MS is just harming the IT business world with such anti competitive behavior, I am sick of it.

Edit: http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124

Crazy stuff eh?

[Nano Geek]

I don't believe it's quite all that bad. The Nigerian government paid for all of the computers they bought and they want to put Windows on them now. They will probably find out what they should have stuck with Linux, but they have the right to install whatever they want just like you.

[Presto123]

I don't believe it's quite all that bad. The Nigerian government paid for all of the computers they bought and they want to put Windows on them now. They will probably find out what they should have stuck with Linux, but they have the right to install whatever they want just like you.

Dear. If they find out how much better Ubuntu is, the poor saps running the Ubuntu download servers won't know WHAT to do. LOL

[marsmissionaries]

God forbid they be stuck with mandriva...biggest pile of crap i ever used.

[MRiGnS]

http://digg.com/linux_unix/Mandriva_An_open_letter_to_Steve_Ballmer

digg for justice ;P

[sloggerkhan]

I think the real travesty isn't so much which OS has been chosen, but that somebody influenced things in such a way that money is going to be wasted majorly. Can Nigeria afford to waste money converting these PCs? Is good for students? I don't care what OS it is, the way this is being done is just bad.

[Nano Geek]

I think the real travesty isn't so much which OS has been chosen, but that somebody influenced things in such a way that money is going to be wasted majorly. Can Nigeria afford to waste money converting these PCs? Is good for students? I don't care what OS it is, the way this is being done is just bad.But it just sounds like the Mandrivia dev is annoyed that Mandrivia isn't going to be on the computers. He doesn't give any evidence that Microsoft influenced the government to install Windows instead.
I think he was just mad and wanted to vent some of that frustration.

[sloggerkhan]

Still, Nigeria payed for computers with an OS (and, I assume, included in that cost was preinstallation with educational software and also the cost of localizing the computers to the country). These localizations and installs were part of the cost footed by Nigeria in their purchase. They are now adding to that service cost of purchase with the additional cost of windows licenses, windows compatible software, and support. I don't see any way that this deal, regardless of the reasons behind it, is anything but bad economics which waste a significant amount of money that should probably be going to actual student educations. (I guess MS could have said "we'll give you windows, educational software, and support for free or at a massive discount if you agree not to use linux," but that seems unlikely.)

[osxcapades]

This is terrible, this is a shame for the IT world, this is just apalling and awful.

For what reason? Because they'll end up using Windows?

You know, this may be hard for you to believe, but some people like using Windows. Really. They do.

[vexorian]

For what reason? Because they'll end up using Windows?

You know, this may be hard for you to believe, but some people like using Windows. Really. They do.
It doesn't matter.

-
To explain things better, let's imagine you run a country! You wanted to get computers for education, (no, not to teach computers, but to assist learning) So you run an elicitation you get to like these Linux computers with their educational software, you happen to like this software and the fact that being open it can be customized to your needs. So you ask for 17000 computers with that software installed, and you request the software to be customized like you want.

And all goes correctly, the deal is done, you are about to get the computers with the software you ordered, you pay for the hardware AND software. But ... SUDDENLY... you change your mind and decide to install windows on the computers and forget about the software you requested before... What's the logical explanation?

-

[Nano Geek]

It doesn't matter.

-
To explain things better, let's imagine you run a country! You wanted to get computers for education, (no, not to teach computers, but to assist learning) So you run an elicitation you get to like these Linux computers with their educational software, you happen to like this software and the fact that being open it can be customized to your needs. So you ask for 17000 computers with that software installed, and you request the software to be customized like you want.

And all goes correctly, the deal is done, you are about to get the computers with the software you ordered, you pay for the hardware AND software. But ... SUDDENLY... you change your mind and decide to install windows on the computers and forget about the software you requested before... What's the logical explanation?

-But we still don't know whether Microsoft had anything to do with this in the first place. And saying that the government is corrupt just because they use Windows is far from the truth. If it could be proven that Microsoft was at the back of this, I would say that they were being anti-competitive.
But either way, it's not that big of a deal.

[vexorian]

But we still don't know whether Microsoft had anything to do with this in the first place. And saying that the government is corrupt just because they use Windows is far from the truth. If it could be proven that Microsoft was at the back of this, I would say that they were being anti-competitive.
But either way, it's not that big of a deal.
Did you read what I said? (You did quote it, so I guess that you should have read it)

If their government liked windows so much they should have requested windows computers from the first day.

[Kingsley]

Don't get too riled up over this. I bet you 5000 Naira that the folks in Nigeria don't give a damn. That's why government officials over there are able to be so corrupt. Most people in Nigeria don't like to get involved with such politics.

[happysmileman]

Don't get too riled up over this. I bet you 5000 Naira that the folks in Nigeria don't give a damn. That's why government officials over there are able to be so corrupt. Most people in Nigeria don't like to get involved with such politics.

Corruption is ok if the people don't care?

[_samba_]

Microsoft sees progress in getting Windows on XO
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=592396&highlight=Steve+Ballmer
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071026/tc_nm/microsoft_laptops_dc_3

[Sp4cedOut]

It doesn't matter.

-
To explain things better, let's imagine you run a country! You wanted to get computers for education, (no, not to teach computers, but to assist learning) So you run an elicitation you get to like these Linux computers with their educational software, you happen to like this software and the fact that being open it can be customized to your needs. So you ask for 17000 computers with that software installed, and you request the software to be customized like you want.

And all goes correctly, the deal is done, you are about to get the computers with the software you ordered, you pay for the hardware AND software. But ... SUDDENLY... you change your mind and decide to install windows on the computers and forget about the software you requested before... What's the logical explanation?

-

Maybe after the looked into Windows more, they decided they liked it better?

EDIT: Look, if you can find evidence MS actually bribed politicians I'd agree with you (and probably contact the FBI, because it's illegal for US corporations to bribe foreign officials), but just because Nigeria decided to buy some Windows licenses doesn't mean it's part of some master plan by MS.

[KiwiNZ]

A customer changed their mind , it happens all the time. And from that you claim corruption and bribery????

Where is your evidence?
A blog ? Oh thats water tight evidence.




http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/

This is terrible, this is a shame for the IT world, this is just apalling and awful . Microsoft possibly bribed as many Nigerian politicians as possible to do this.

Look, The Nigerian government has paid for Mandriva PCs already, but they will still pay for windows PCs and use them instead. This is utter ridiculous, if you have Nigerian friends or something like that denounce this, it is a atterible act of corruption from the Nigerian government. Elicitations happen for a reason, if you end up ignoring them and paying another company later, you are screwing things up...

And MS, I wish we could get rid of this predator, MS is just harming the IT business world with such anti competitive behavior, I am sick of it.

[BDNiner]

These things happened, what can you really do? Growing up in Africa I have a good idea of how all this went down, but as a number of other posters have pointed out there is no evidence of foul play by M$. Even if there was some evidence of M$ doing something underhanded, nothing will be done about it.

[AdamWill]

But it just sounds like the Mandrivia dev is annoyed that Mandrivia isn't going to be on the computers. He doesn't give any evidence that Microsoft influenced the government to install Windows instead.
I think he was just mad and wanted to vent some of that frustration.

Nope. It was the same approach Microsoft has used in just about every case where there's been a major win for an open source product.

What happens is that you complete a deal, and then a week later, Microsoft shows up, waving massive discounts on its software (that it would never have offered in any other scenario). Microsoft's not expecting to make a profit on the deal, they couldn't at the prices they offer. What they're trying to do is two things:

1) stop the competition getting a win, at any cost. Microsoft does not want anyone, anywhere, to make a significant deployment of anything but Microsoft software. It is perfectly prepared to use its massive cash reserves to try and stop this happening.

2) produce an eventual future return. It's the drug dealer model: the first hit is always free. They basically give away Windows, and perhaps Office, in order to get their foot in the door. You can bet that when they concoct a reason for Nigeria to update the software on the machines in two years time, they won't be offering the same discounts *then*.

Microsoft has a track record of using this exact same approach all over the place - whenever anyone announces a deployment of Linux, or OpenOffice, or any open source competitor to a Microsoft product, a high-powered Microsoft detachment shows up the next day waving gigantic discounts.

In economic terms it's not a 'rational' free-market play. It's not something a free market theorist would recognize as legitimate competition. It's a classic monopoly play: the use of an existing dominant position in the market, and existing cash reserves, to preserve that dominant position by the suppression of competition. Microsoft is not 'competing' in these deals in the traditional sense, by trying to make the best offer it can while still retaining a reasonable profit for itself. It just makes an extreme lowball offer, backed by its large cash reserves, in order to try and make it impossible for any competitor which is actually obliged to bid in a 'traditional' way to compete.

I'm not an economist and I'm not speaking as a representative of Mandriva here, this is just my personal perception of Microsoft's response to every major deal by one of its open source competitors. It's easy enough to check the records and see that Microsoft follows this pattern every time.

[a12ctic]

(I guess MS could have said "we'll give you windows, educational software, and support for free or at a massive discount if you agree not to use linux," but that seems unlikely.)

Or does it seem unlikely. Think about it, I doubt many Africans have computers right now, especaily motern computers. Now that the goverment is starting to get them computers for schools they will be exposed to them, and this generation will most likely want to use the computers at home. Now, a lot of people live in Africa, its a whole conitnent unclaimed. If those users are only exposed to linux what will they want to use when it comes down to buying their own machines? Linux, just how Windows is here.

As farfetched as it sounds now, I wouldn't doubt MS for 10 seconds that every liscense was given free, and then a large sum of money was givin to the Nigerian goverment to have Winodws put on those computers. MS isn't selling a product to the Nigerian goverment, this is pure advertisment.

[rustybronco]

Typical microsoft buisness practice and the reason I don't use their os anymore.

http://www.linux-watch.com/news/NS6409071283.html

So, by throwing almost free products on the world market, they're trying to ruin the chances of Linux and open source. If Linux continues to make gains in the U.S. and Canada, I expect that Microsoft may even -- oh, how it'll hate this -- cut the prices on Vista and Office.
People who don't live in places where Microsoft rules have also realized that, while the first taste of Microsoft products may be free, the long-term costs are enormous.


Don't put anything past them.

[rustybronco]

Nope. It was the same approach Microsoft has used in just about every case where there's been a major win for an open source product.

What happens is that you complete a deal, and then a week later, Microsoft shows up, waving massive discounts on its software (that it would never have offered in any other scenario). Microsoft's not expecting to make a profit on the deal, they couldn't at the prices they offer. What they're trying to do is two things:

1) stop the competition getting a win, at any cost. Microsoft does not want anyone, anywhere, to make a significant deployment of anything but Microsoft software. It is perfectly prepared to use its massive cash reserves to try and stop this happening.

2) produce an eventual future return. It's the drug dealer model: the first hit is always free. They basically give away Windows, and perhaps Office, in order to get their foot in the door. You can bet that when they concoct a reason for Nigeria to update the software on the machines in two years time, they won't be offering the same discounts *then*.

Microsoft has a track record of using this exact same approach all over the place - whenever anyone announces a deployment of Linux, or OpenOffice, or any open source competitor to a Microsoft product, a high-powered Microsoft detachment shows up the next day waving gigantic discounts.

In economic terms it's not a 'rational' free-market play. It's not something a free market theorist would recognize as legitimate competition. It's a classic monopoly play: the use of an existing dominant position in the market, and existing cash reserves, to preserve that dominant position by the suppression of competition. Microsoft is not 'competing' in these deals in the traditional sense, by trying to make the best offer it can while still retaining a reasonable profit for itself. It just makes an extreme lowball offer, backed by its large cash reserves, in order to try and make it impossible for any competitor which is actually obliged to bid in a 'traditional' way to compete.

I'm not an economist and I'm not speaking as a representative of Mandriva here, this is just my personal perception of Microsoft's response to every major deal by one of its open source competitors. It's easy enough to check the records and see that Microsoft follows this pattern every time.Beautifully spoken.
They aren't doing it for the good of mankind...

http://redmondmag.com/news/article.asp?EditorialsID=9201
BASTAR*$ !!!!

[Dimitriid]

And here we have yet another failure of the free market. :popcorn:

[sloggerkhan]

So if Microsoft did make their OS and support a giveaway to fight linux, I think there's a problem with price discrimination that goes against the spirit of a global free market.

[Bruce M.]

But ... SUDDENLY... you change your mind and decide to install windows-

Gee, can't a person change their mind?

and forget about the software you requested before-

No, not true, they paid for the software. Once they did that they have the right to use it .... or not us it.

... What's the logical explanation?

1. It doesn't need to be logical, or even your or my defination of logical.
2. the explanation - you'll have to ask them. But be prepared to get an answer you may not like.

[Nano Geek]

I just want to make this clear: We don't know if Microsoft even had anything to do with this. All we have is the word of an angry Mandrivia programmer. Microsoft might not have done anything to cause them to switch. We just don't know.

[sloggerkhan]

*#$%&, the main issue isn't whether god damn MS had "anything" to do with this. If MS is practicing post bid price discrimination, it's an issue. If they aren't they aren't.

BUT EVEN IF THIS IS JUST SOME STUPID GOVERNMENT THING, IT'S STILL A WASTE OF TIME, ENERGY, AND RESOURCES THAT SHOULD BE BEING USED TO EDUCATE.

[zorkerz]

Unfortunately we have too few facts about this. 1700 Mandriva computers customized for Nigeria were ordered by the Nigerian government then produced, and shipped by Mandriva.

The striking bit of information is that now Nigeria plans wipe Mandriva off these computers and install windows. We don't know why.

I think there is no arguing that something happened to change Nigeria's mind. If they wanted windows in the first place they would have not wasted money on Mandriva.

I think its safe to assume there were no show stopping problems with Mandriva or else the Nigerians would have used it as their reason for switching (unless the Mandriva blog is purposefully withholding info to create excitement).

I think it is also safe to assume that somehow this new (usually large) cost of buying and installing windows on 17,000 machines was somehow made more favorable than the original plan.

The only entity that I can imagine with that much interest in windows over Mandriva is Microsoft itself. I have as many of you long since been amazed at the tactics and strategies they are allowed to get away with. But this is now all speculation.

As a side note I don't put much blame on Microsoft as much as I rant about them. In my mind they use brilliant strategies that are very well adapted for their market position. I think the problem lies in governments and the organization of our economic system that allows on organization to continue to exist once it is no longer encouraging growth and innovation.

Hope a make some sense to you all. Is there any way we could help and poor Mandriva all that work and im sure a very exciting deal plus the proposition of helping people use 17000 new machines and suddenly its all gone. The money they received must somehow feel tainted.

[AdamWill]

Francois is not a programmer, he's the CEO of Mandriva.

[Hendrixski]

I guess what sucks the most about this is that those 17 000 computers were supposed to be a pilot program. And after that they would have bought more computers with Linux.

And as much as I like Ubuntu, I've used Mandriva before when I was distro hoping and it is GOOD. I personally preferred Ubuntu, but some people like Mandriva. I like them, plus they're French, which I like as well.

[anuj.pathania]

quite sad....one reason i left Microsoft OS and switched to ubuntu,

It is the ubuntu philosophy which led me to the change --- Free software for free world.

I hope one day enitre world accept this philosophy.

Anuj..

[eljoeb]

So if Microsoft did make their OS and support a giveaway to fight linux, I think there's a problem with price discrimination that goes against the spirit of a global free market.

Oh I agree. Old people should not get discounts at the movie theater.

No proof, no give a dang.

[Fred_E _krugar]

All I got to say is:


He Who Has The Gold, Makes The Rules (M$)

[LinuxGuy1234]

http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/

This is terrible, this is a shame for the IT world, this is just apalling and awful . Microsoft possibly bribed as many Nigerian politicians as possible to do this.

Look, The Nigerian government has paid for Mandriva PCs already, but they will still pay for windows PCs and use them instead. This is utter ridiculous, if you have Nigerian friends or something like that denounce this, it is a atterible act of corruption from the Nigerian government. Elicitations happen for a reason, if you end up ignoring them and paying another company later, you are screwing things up...

And MS, I wish we could get rid of this predator, MS is just harming the IT business world with such anti competitive behavior, I am sick of it.

Wow! I should say (in French):
Non d'Oh ! Microsoft a succédé le Niger !

Man... it means:
Oh no! Microsoft took over Niger!

Mandriva is one of the Linux kinds that is widily used.

(-------Funny!-------
Mandriva has a bug in makeMarketShareAndPeopleUsingIt().
This part is wrong:

if (people <= 1000000)
{
people = +100;
}
else
{
}


It should be:

if (people <= 100000)
{
people = people + 100000;
}
else
{
}
) - don't remember this, it's my sense of Linux humor.

[20thCenturyBoy]

Microsoft Denies Nigerian Linux Scam (http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3708961)

...

[rustybronco]

Microsoft Denies Nigerian Linux Scam (http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3708961)

...
Mandriva and Microsoft are not particularly friendly competitors. Mandriva has not bought into the Microsoft Linux patent protection program that Novell, Xandros, Linspire and TurboLinux have already signed up for. if it looks, runs and smells like a rat... Intellectual property and sue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4021775.stm
Microsoft has reportedly told Asian governments that they could face intellectual property rights claims if they use free software such as Linux.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20071102/tc_infoworld/93088
"There is something fishy going on," Ajisomo said by phone from Chicago on Friday. "I was really, really very surprised."

and the ever popular...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6998272.stm

[cprofitt]

They got their money... the customer opted for Windows...

are they against free choice?

[Sunflower1970]

Looks like Nigeria is back to using Mandriva:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20071109/tc_pcworld/139480

http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/11/09/mandriva-regains-nigeria-deal-from-microsoft

I wonder what's going on...

[vexorian]

It looks like I was wrong about the Nigerian government, all points out it was the supplier who was involved in the 'funny' bussiness. At least the Nigerian government took action.

[zorkerz]

Well thats good news and clears up much of the confusion.

[Extreme Coder]

God forbid they be stuck with mandriva...biggest pile of crap i ever used.

You just amazed me and convinced me right now.
I'm moving back to Ubuntu from Mandriva.. [/sarcasm]

Your post would be worth something if you gave reasoning ;)

BTW, to all who say they're free to change their opinions, I say that's OK too, BUT, would they change their opinions after they pay the money for Mandriva, and then go buy 17,000 Windows licenses? I'm sure if they wanted Windows in the first place, they could ordered it that way, and the wasted money could be used in something better.

[wolfen69]

i dont know if this was posted already, but apparently Mandriva has won back the Nigerian school system from M$. Great news.
http://www.computerworlduk.com/management/government-law/public-sector/news/index.cfm?newsid=6124

[RTSnLV]

In the very least Mandriva still got paid for the deal, and they can re-invest that into more R&D, marketing etc.

Is anyone really surprised M$ would do this? I'm not

[mivo]

Since these computers were customized to work well with Linux and were part of a package deal, they may not really work well with Windows Vista (unless MS was going to provide a five years old version of their OS). I don't quite see the machines to be of the kind that runs Vista well.

Anyway, it is a free market. Sure, I would like to see more people use Linux (especially kids so that they grow up with it), and it seems as if that may happen after all in Nigeria, but it's still a free market, and it is about choice. This works "for us" sometimes, and other times it works "against us". C'est la vie. :)

[AdamWill]

Microsoft sells XP on the Classmate, not Vista. XP is certified for the Classmate, Vista is not. As everyone has speculated, the Classmate hardware really isn't oomphy enough for Vista - it has 256MB of RAM, a fairly slow processor, a slow graphics chipset etc.

RTS, the point is that this deal is a *pilot* program - it's being run in the expectation of far larger deployments in the future. That's why we really want it to be done with Mandriva.

[mivo]

As everyone has speculated, the Classmate hardware really isn't oomphy enough for Vista - it has 256MB of RAM, a fairly slow processor, a slow graphics chipset etc.

This is still not a system I would want to even run XP on. 256 MB just don't really cut it. Actually, I'd not even want to run a modern "stock" distro with Gnome or KDE on this, but the announcements said it was a Mandriva version tailored to these boxes, so I assume that it would/will run just fine. I just can't see XP being impressive on the computer (not if you actually run software besides the naked OS).

[m@dm@x]

So it looks like the Nigerian government is run by idiots, what is the big deal? If they are stupid enough to get shafted by MS, then they have what is comming to them.

[K.Mandla]

I'm a bit mystified by the righteous indignation over the Mandriva debacle. How could anyone predict what would happen to those computers anyway?

I guess I'm somewhat numb to the idea; I've given away a dozen computers in the past year, each one with Linux in some form on it. And I know full well that the recipients immediately installed illegal copies of Windows instead. I can only shrug.

It's too bad the Mandriva deal went sour, but there is never any guarantee that Linux will be on a machine forever.

[kazuya]

folks are right and some of these answers are misguided. Insult the nigerian govt for daring to waste money on the both xp and mandriva? Does not seem like an intelligent reason to insult. What about applauding them for taking or making the effort for trying this linux thing out. I applaude all parties for trying to start a trend of growth and expansion of free high quality resources to the youths of tommorrow there.
In the big picture, this mandriva deal opens folks there to the notion of another OS besides Win XP or Vista.

MS is a company focused on profit and monopoly. This is the ultimate aim of most successful businesses. In the end, the word gets out and some users who use the products would better be able to compare and see the gains of one over the other..

A dual-boot setup can easily reconcile the peace. In the end, you'd see different reactions from different users.. I honestly believe that for many with the linux part may start to appeal to them more than the MS part.

That is how I first started. Look at me four years later. No MS on my PCs except for my wife's PC and laptop which has a dualboot.

[lespaul_rentals]

(and probably contact the FBI, because it's illegal for US corporations to bribe foreign officials)

Someone's never heard of the CIA, World Bank, and the atrocities the two have committed.

[AdamWill]

k.mandla: these are special-purpose systems intended for education, rather like OLPCs. They would be used in fairly well-controlled and administered trials. It's not like just selling a white box to a customer you never see again. It would be rather hard to just install an OS out of the box onto a Classmate - especially Windows, as the full version of XP or Vista would be substantially too bloated for it.

Given the nature of these systems and the way the project in question is run, I would be surprised if the OS that's eventually supplied on the machines when they arrive with the actual administrators of the pilot ever changes.